A game to finally understand physics on Kickstarter!

In order to create a tablet version of its PC game Mecanika, which was produced in 2011 in collaboration with UQAM (Université du Québec À Montréal), Montreal game studio CREO is launching acrowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, which is opening itself to Canadian projects today.

Designed by François Boucher-Genesse, a former game designer on Halo 3 who now holds a master’s degree in educational sciences, the game aims to be both fun and effective in stimulating learning. Experiments conducted by UQAM have shown the impact of the first PC version of the game on students’ progress. And the results are impressive! Indeed, classes that have used Mecanika have progressed four to five times more than those that have learned the subject via traditional methods.

In Mecanika, players must direct robots – scouts – toward stars. To achieve that, they have access to an array of robots, each representing a physical force. The 50 levels are designed to surprise the players and to make them think about the way objects move around them.

“Mechanical physics are a subject that students find very difficult. With Mecanika, we learn in an intuitive way, instead of with formulas. The game helps to better visualize the effect of mechanical forces in a gameplay so enjoyable that we can play it just for fun,” says CREO president Caroline Julien.

In the course of its Kickstarter campaign, which will unfold until October 6, CREO is asking for a minimum of $15,000 to finance in part the production of a new version of the game that will be available on Android and iOS tablets. In exchange for their contribution, investors will receive rewards such as a visit of the studio, an educational guide, images from the game or even the possibility to participate in the creation of a level of Mecanika.